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12 Dagnostaw Demski in cooperation with A. Kassabova, I. Sz. Kristöf, L.Laineste and K. Baraniecka-Olszewska World War I changed the optics on the Other significantly. The old social order fell; the old values supporting the network of relations lost their significance under the new circumstances. Then, the interwar period brought a new order, based on the ruins of the older social divisions and, politically, on the ruins of old empires. A recognition of ethnic divisions still existed—they preserved their weight—but the divisions began to be perceived and interpreted from many local points of view (new nation-states). Wartime seemed to be a period during which the image of the Other was especially in the centre of attention. As our focus shifted later to World War II and much attention was paid to photography as a new medium that created the illusion of providing a faithful record of reality (Demski, Laineste & Baraniecka-Olszewska 2015: 13). There was a visible contrast between the grotesque presentations in caricatures aiming to sketch and exaggerate, and photography, which aimed to depict “neutrally”. WWII, however, triggered extreme polarizations and these were reflected in the visual representations. The horrors of war, the tragic human losses, and the almost constant mortal danger caused shock and, after the war, invited reflection. A new era began. People still described their “reality” focusing on differences and the othering of the unknown, but they did it in a new way. The period after the end of WWII brought new state boundaries and new political relations in central and eastern Europe— that is, the Cold War started and the iron curtain was lowered—which to some degree prolonged mechanisms of othering established during WWII. The Other, as we presented in the third volume in the series, was still depicted as an enemy, an invader, and an occupant. During the postwar period, however, the social structure changed, old hierarchies fell, and social relations were transformed. The range of regional contacts expanded. The authors of the current volume investigate the role that the new types of visual media played in restructuring a world depressed and ridden by wars and study the people’s ability and will to use that media—for example, in funeral culture, tourism, and advertising or, for that matter, in pop culture, which was also disseminated through the new media. Were the new visual media still a way of conceptualizing reality? In the context of this volume we raise questions referring to the Other and its visual representations in central and eastern Europe in 1945-1980. Analyzing the illustrations, caricatures, and photographs published in the previous volumes, we were aiming at investigating whether there is an eastern European way of perceiving and depicting the Other. We wanted to check whether—despite the adoption of numerous of ideas, patterns, and cultural clichés from western Europe—tegional specificities allowed us to speak about certain “eastern European eyes” (Demski & Sz. Kristéf 2013: 13), a particular way of looking on otherness. It is precisely to grasp this specific eastern European gaze that has been the main goal of the entire series and which, therefore, underpins the current, last volume. We have found that the context of representing the Other has its own east-central European particularity. Mutual relations of neighboring countries and common
